removing symbol from partially linked object file

[Erik Leunissen]

Why isn't the symbol X removed in this case?

> cat a.c
void
X ()
{
}
> cat b.c
extern void X();
void
Y ()
{
X();
}
> gcc -c a.c b.c
> ld -r -nostdlib -o ab.o a.o b.o
> /usr/local/src/binutils-2.17/binutils/objcopy -L X ab.o
> nm ab.o
00000000 t X
00000008 T Y
> /usr/local/src/binutils-2.17/binutils/objcopy -x ab.o
> nm ab.o
00000000 t X
00000008 T Y
>